Get a grip Gareth, left; and will someone give this poor pup a home, right? Photograph: Reuters/Getty Images

THE AMBITION TO ONE DAY MARRY MILA KUNIS

Remember the time when Tottenham nearly won the league last season? No, nor does the Fiver. Although you can't trust its memory, seeing as it's been up since 4pm yesterday quaffing Special Fizz in celebration of Bradley Wiggins winning his big bike race, Gareth Bale has been fondly reminiscing about said heroic title charge this morning, a relentless quest that definitely didn't last for around 0.00000000000000003 seconds in January or end as disastrously as the Fiver jauntily removing the stabilisers before cycling home last night.

And buoyed by the return of Jermaine Jenas and David Bentley, Bale is backing Tottenham to challenge again this year, even though their only striker is one they sold in 2008, their captain's retired and their new manager, prickly teenager AVB, is surely only one Gary Neville-inspired meltdown away from turning up to training wearing a crown and insisting everyone calls him Andre the Magnificent.

That's because Tottenham have a plan: to be good at Doing Winning. "It's obviously going to be very tough but halfway through last season we were challenging for the title," roared Bale, confusing 'briefly being within touch of second place but getting a nosebleed and drawing at home with Wolves' as 'challenging for the title'. "Our plan is to be up there again and continue the form from the first half of the season to the second half, and we'll be right up there. We've made a couple of new signings who have fitted in nicely, we've got a very ambitious club and manager."

Tottenham, of course, are famous for their intimidatingly brazen ambition, having once boasted about "nearly" signing Rivaldo in a futile bid to sell more season tic … to demonstrate to their supporters what an ambitious club they are. "This illustrates the high nature of our ambition," said Glenn Hoddle, Tottenham's manager at the time, in much the same way as the Fiver watching Friends with Benefits in its entirety illustrated the high nature of its ambition to one day marry Mila Kunis.

Unfortunately for Spurs, Luka Modric doesn't appear to share Bale's vision and, eager to move to ambition-free Real Madrid, hasn't turned up for the club's pre-season tour of the US. The Prickly Teenager and Rafael Van der Vaart both say that Joe Lewis's gofer Daniel Levy is "very angry" with Modric's stance. So angry that he's going to fine the Croatian two weeks' wages just to show him who's boss. That'll be Modric, then.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Succumbed again. Arrived at Euston Station bursting for a wee. Paid 30p to relieve myself. It's the principle that infuriates me" - Times are hard for former Ballon D'Or winner Lil' Mickey Owen as he arrives in London bursting to impress prospective clubs with his ability to run 800 yards with a torch.

HOAX OF THE DAY

Having publicly announced last Wednesday that they had located two possible foreign recruits whose "pedigree is good", ute driving, crocodile-wrestling, shrimp-barbecuing, A-Leaguers, Adelaide United, were left looking like even bigger flamin' galahs than usual, when one player, Dexter Rosales, failed to turn up.

Upon further investigation, that may have involved Googling the name of the player who supposedly had spells at Valencia and Ajax but plainly doesn't exist, an Adelaide suit today admitted: "It has been a strange few days with all the speculation around this mystery man – it doesn't look great from our end.

"We're not the first club to be given a false lead with a supposed triallist, but other clubs probably just don't promote it to the world like we did." Unless you're Southampton.

FIVER LETTERS

"Given the constant reappearance of the Guardian Soulmates ads, it seems your attempts to point out the utter futility of them are equally utterly futile" - Jo Smart.

"It's ironic that Neymar's band's hit single is Too Shy when Neymar never shies away from talking about himself. 'Only God knows where I will play next'. I think God has better things to do" - John Hewertson.

"Nothing irritates me more than Mike Hunt (Friday's Fiver). When did we become a culture that looks up the correct meaning of words on Google, rather than in a dictionary, or at least on dictionary.com?" - Stephen Miller.

"Please don't tell me about the pain of seeing Stoke in the summer (Friday's Fiver). They are paying a visit to my hometown club Columbus Crew on Tuesday. Can anything be worse than being forced to watch Stoke on a blistering

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BITS AND BOBS

If the Fiver was cynical it might think that Lord Ferg's praising of the Glazers had something to do with his desire to sign Sao Paulo's 19-year-old winger Lucas Moura. "We haven't reached an agreement for the player. We have shown an interest, but until such time we get a deal agreed, we can't say he's our player," snorted Ferg.

And Feyenoord defender Ron Vlaar has given the Fiver permission to publish the news that he won't be going to Aston Villa. "I don't like to be messed about. You can write down that this transfer is now off," he dictated, loftily.